Customized Girl Review

Update: Customized Girl responded. See the end of the post for the update.

For the first time in my life, I’ll be exhibiting at a conference – namely, PushFire will be exhibiting at Affiliate Summit East next month (and we’re pretty damn excited about it). Knowing myself, Sean and one of our team members were going to have to work the booth, I set out to get some customized shirts with the PushFire logo on them.

For the guys, I got custom Polo shirts from PromoDirect (haven’t received them yet to be able to comment on their work). Anyone who knows me probably isn’t surprised that I didn’t order a Polo for myself. Instead, I wanted to get myself some custom tank tops made, since that’s what I primarily wear.

I needed tank tops that didn’t have thick straps, but I didn’t want them with teeny straps and super low cut neckline like I was trying to be a “booth babe” either. I also prefer my tank tops to be on the longer side. After quite a bit of searching, I found Customized Girl and they had some “Junior Fit Bella Sheer Longer Length Rib Strap Tank Tops” – which was exactly the kind of tank style I was looking for. The site looked nice and had quite a few fans on Facebook and followers on Twitter. They definitely weren’t the cheapest site ($25.97 per shirt), but I didn’t want to save a few bucks and sacrifice on the style of shirt since I knew I’d be wearing them frequently at conferences (exhibiting or not).

So, I ordered a test shirt, mainly because I was unsure of the size. I figured when I was sure it fit, I’d order the total that I needed (which was 10). The site was easy to use and I was able to easily upload my graphic and see a preview before finally checking out. I was also able to add “@SUGARRAE” in orange text to the back (which cost me another $7.50). Checkout was easy and because I knew I needed 10 more once I was sure of my size and Affiliate Summit is only a month away, I opted to get quicker shipping (which cost me another $19.67) since I wait til the last minute to do everything. Haha. ;-)

Total cost for one custom “Junior Fit Bella Sheer Longer Length Rib Strap Tank Top” with my logo on the front, my Twitter handle on the back and expedited shipping? $53.14

Before the shirt even arrived, I got a sales promo from them via email, which I thought was a little pushy since I hadn’t even received my first ever order from them. But I thought, who knows, maybe they just added me to the generic list and it happened to go out less than 48 hours after I’d placed the order. But I digress…

The shirt arrived today (along with a coupon for $5 off my next order). And it looked AWESOME! Until I put it on. :( (Sorry, no before picture as I didn’t expect the shirt to get destroyed by me putting it on).

I could not believe the damage that was done to the printing by me simply PUTTING IT ON. I ordered a large so it wouldn’t be skin tight on my stomach and I don’t have big boobs. The logo printing literally split apart as I pulled it down over my chest. It suddenly looked like it had been washed 200 times.

Think I’m kidding?

Four caveats about the above picture:

Anyone’s chest looks big when a pic is taken close up, I assure you mine is not haha – there’s no way that was the cause

The bottom of the “i” in Fire is not “damaged… that is part of our logo… (didn’t want anyone who didn’t know our logo to assume that had flaked off)

I wish you could photograph sticky… the logo on the front was “sticky” to the touch

This picture was – NO LIE – taken about 60 SECONDS after I put the shirt on for the very first time

The back of the shirt held up quite a bit better, but it also showed very slight signs of splitting on the text (not visible in the picture below) – though no where near as bad as the front. As my husband, Sean pointed out though, it also has yet to be washed. You can see the back of the shirt below:

Since the whole point of a “customized shirt” is to show off whatever is printed on this, the shirt from Customized Girl was a huge #fail. However, to be complete as far as an overall review goes, the shirt itself was awesome. High quality, soft and would have been awesome had the image printing not split to all hell upon putting it on.

I was pretty bummed. I contacted Customized Girl via two methods to express my disappointment. First was via Twitter. I tweeted the picture of my shirt which obviously showed the poor quality of the printing. Immediately after, I emailed customer service and expressed the same sentiment in more than 140 characters(and attached a picture).

About an hour after my tweet, Customized Girl tweeted back to me:

So I responded back via several tweets to them that I already had, I didn’t plan to use them for the full amount of shirts I needed, but would appreciate having the one I paid $53 dollars for replaced and they responded with:

For the record, today is Friday. So that means I won’t even get a response about my botched order for almost 3 days. I get that it was in the afternoon on Friday when I received the shirt, but it’s hard to wait several days for a response when you’re an unhappy customer for apparent, obvious and “their fault” reasons.

I absolutely will update this post with the resolution (or hopefully not, lack thereof) when they deal with it. But, no matter the resolution, I can’t recommend them and would never use them again. Which is a damn shame because they have some “flowy” shirts I was dying to get done to use during the few months of the year when even *I* won’t wear tank tops due to the weather. They also have a very easy to use site and quality shirts (which is why I even gave them 2 stars). But, none of that makes up for poor quality printing on a customized, printed product.

Now I need to find a new vendor to get some custom tank tops – and quick. Let’s hope I have better luck with the Polo shirts from PromoDirect.

Update

So, Customized Girl customer service went out of their way to correct the mistake. They called me, apologized for the shirt quality and sent me a few replacement shirts to choose from. Turns out the problem was the TYPE of shirt I picked combined with the placement of the logo on said shirt. I ended up loving the Bella flowy shirt they sent me with our logo screen printed on it and I ordered 10 more to use at conferences and the like.

Since I was short on time because the first shirt had been completely messed up, they also tossed in free rush shipping to ensure I had the shirts in time for the conference I was attending the next week.

Because of the stellar customer service and the quality of the SECOND round of shirts I received, I’ve updated their rating to 3.5 stars. That said, I’d still be hesitant to use them again for a new shirt design because I have no way of knowing what shirt and placement combinations will produce good results and which will produce bad ones. But I’ll definitely be ordering more of the PushFire screen printed flowy shirts from them as I need them since I know they come out well.

JOIN THE 46,000+ PEOPLE IN THE SUGARRAE COMMUNITY!

Comments

Rae, I use NDesigns.net – and although I can’t say they have the style shirt you want – or if they can do a one-off or small order. But I can say that they have always done excellent work for our screen printed TShirts (we get a new design for our staff each summer). I think if you call Jeff and have a budget of $50 for a sample, quick ship, he may be able to help you out. May not be a fit for your current needs, but I can definitely recommend the quality on the shirts I have ordered (4 doz/year for the last 6 years).

Rae,
I’ve always been completely happy with the shirts I get from CafePress. We have a competition BBQ team “Nice Rack” and our shirts have been washed a gazillion times and they hold up great in the wash and haven’t faded too badly. There’s normal fade with bleach action but that’s to be expected. They are super-good quality too without unraveling seams or being twisted/torqued after the wash because it wasn’t cut on the fabric grain (I hate that). The site is easy to use and you can upload your own logo and see what it will look like before ordering. They have tanks too but I prefer the baby-doll tee with cap sleeves and scoop neck. Hope it all works out.

I recently purchased two shirts for me & my husband to take to Vegas from Customized Girl online. The shirts are not worth the price. The material & quality of the shirts are poor & low grade! The artwork looked cheap, it did not look like a $35 shirt, better yet shirts since I purchased two. It was the worst $78 I’ve ever spent. Customer service was not so helpful only offered a reprint with a 30% discount & I had to cover the shipping. My trip was a week away so it was not helpful at all. I love shopping online but I will never purchase from this website again & I will write as many reviews as I can on different sites, so the next person doesn’t make the same mistake I did & spend $78 for two T-shirts that were worth $10 a piece!

Hi Anonymous. I work for Customized Girl. I am so sorry about your experience. Do you mind saying which shirts and artwork you purchased? If you felt they looked cheap, that is definitely something we want to correct as soon as possible. If you are willing to give us a second chance, please contact customizedgirl@eretailing.com and we will do our best to make you happy.

Customizedgirl.com is not a good site. I’ve given them three chances to print a decent looking design on a basic shirt. The colors were off, the design wasn’t centered, faded after ONE wash…..and it’s expensive. Also, check out other sites like zazzle, cafepress, spreadshirt..etc, they have much more creative designs to choose from.

Hi Kristy. Sorry you had this experience. We do are best to make sure our customers are always satisfied. We would like the chance to fix your order and show you the true quality of Customized Girl. Please contact customizedgirl@eretailing.com and we’ll get this fixed. Thanks!

Well, I gave Customizedgirl another chance, and lets just say they showed their “true quality”. I even used a different name because i didn’t want special treatment. I bought one of their black shirts with a white design. 1 wash and the ink is cracking. fooled me again!

Hi Kristy. We hope you contacted customer service at customizedgirl@eretailing.com if you noticed your print cracking. They would be happy to refund your money or replace your item (with the same item or a different item). Our apologies again.

Hi Wendy – Sorry to hear you did not have a great experience on our site. We do everything possible to make sure all of our customers are satisfied with their orders. If you have not already please contact our customer service team at 1-800-361-8811. We would be more than happy to do a re-print or whatever it takes to make you happy.